you can just show up to Hanauma Bay and dive...
park you car and just lock your gear in it for now.
go to the ticket booth and pay your $5 admission.
[tourists only, residents of Hawaii are free =]
watch the "mandatory" 10 minute "don't touch the reef/fish" video.
[get the stamp on your hand after the movie]
walk down to the tram-shuttle loading area and buy an "all-day-tram-pass"
[ensure to get the wrist-band]
also, purchase round-trip tickets for each tank you plan to use that day.
[it's $1 per tank, per trip... so $2 round-trip per tank]
[or... don't pay for the tram and just lug the stuff 150 yards
down AND up the 50% grade]
now, walk back to your car and gear up.
go back to the tram and ride it down.
walk past the showers, to the second life-guard-tower.
spot the orange-buoys ["basket-balls"] and enter the water.
swim to the "basket-balls" and find the gap in the rocks just past there.
surface swim past the inner reef break and pick-up the Trans-Pacific-Telephone-Cable
[you'll see two cables side-by-side on the bottom beginning at the rock-gap]
submerge around the mooring-buoy (for your dive flag?) or in about 15-20 feet of water.
follow the cable out until half-a-tank
[usually coincident with reaching 60 feet in depth]
there are a ton of fish and the viz usually picks up to 60-100+ feet at depth.
In addition, there is a vast reef with mounds and mountains of coral running
the length of the cable. [including coral growing on suspended cable]
in mid Mar, 'swam into a huge school of 2-3 foot jacks.
again, there's always plenty of turtles, eels, and of course
all of the colorful aquarium fish Hanauma is known for.
return following the cable back thru the reef-break.
if you have enough air, try to stay submerged until you're back at the orange-buoys
[sometimes there's a slight current and it's easier to crawl your way through that gap
rather than surface-swim]
shower-off, then get on the tram and ride it up.
at the top, buy a $10 cheese-burger from their captive-audience-cafe =P
repeat as necessary.
I would go diving with you but I have to work those days. Man it must be nice to be on vacation. :14:
